Information management systems such as Hospital Information Systems (HIS) or Radiology Information Systems (RIS) are used to help facilitate access to and control of medical records of patients who are admitted to hospitals or who are receiving outpatient care. Such medical records can be in a wide variety of forms. Some medical records comprise handwritten notes while automatic billing, monitoring, and/or diagnostic systems make other records. For example, diagnostic images can be generated by various different types of modalities such as Computer Tomography, Ultra Sound, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Digital Radiography, or Computed Radiography etc. Each type of diagnostic equipment typically records image data in electronic form. These electronic image data are subsequently presented after printing on films and papers for hardcopy. These can also be viewed on displays of various kinds.
At many medical facilities, patient records are ultimately recorded on disparate types of media that are physically gathered into so-called charts or folders that serve as the repository of medical information for each patient. It is vital for effective patient care that such folders contain all of the medical records associated with a patient. It is also vital that such folders contain only medical records that are associated with the patient so that there is a minimal chance of confusion due to mis-matched medical records. Finally it is also important that access to a patient's folder be properly maintained, with appropriate authorization and security measures established to help protect against unauthorized access to the medical records contained in such folders.
Radio frequency identification tags have been proposed for use in a wide range of identification and tracking applications such as passports and credit cards, as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,222 to Moskowitz et al. One type of commercially available, low profile radio frequency identification tag is the “TAG-IT INLAY”™ RFID tag available from Texas Instruments, Incorporated, located in Dallas, Tex., USA. This component can be used to provide identifying information about an item to which it is attached, for example. Radio frequency identification devices are useful for tracking the location of, characteristics of and usage of documents, books, packages, and other inventory. For example, radio frequency identification tags can be used to track the location of documents and track the chain of custody of such documents within a medium management system. Radio frequency identification tags offer the advantage of small size, enabling these devices to be unobtrusively attached or embedded within an item. Unlike optical or mechanical equivalents, radio frequency identification tags allow communication regardless of orientation relative to a transceiver. When equipped with an on-board read-write memory, these devices can be used for recording and recall of at least some amount of data related to an item to which they are coupled.
Systems employing radio frequency identification tags typically comprise a read/write element, or radio frequency transceiver, that acts as the interface between the radio frequency identification tags and a computer system of some type that uses and/or provides the stored data. In a typical embodiment, the radio frequency identification tag takes the form of a transponder, having an integral antenna, adapted to send and receive electromagnetic fields in cooperation with the transceiver, where the electromagnetic field itself contains information to be conveyed to and from a memory on the radio frequency identification tags. Radio frequency identification tags having both read/write and read-only versions of radio frequency identification tags are available. Information that is stored using a memory in a read/write type of transponder on the radio frequency identification tags can be used to track, identify, and process an item. Such a read-write radio frequency identification tag can also store other information that is to be associated with the item, such as timestamps and identification codes for example.
However, radio frequency tags of the type that are typically associated with a medium such as a diagnostic image or other medical record typically have only a limited range of communication and while they can effectively communicate over a near distance proximate to the radio frequency tag, they cannot send and receive information over convenient distances greater than the near distance. This makes it inconvenient to track the movement of files and folders using conventional radio frequency tag technology.
Thus, it can be seen that there is a need for a means for tracking, and management of medical records that are stored in diagnostic files.